“Female preponderance” of depression in non-clinical populations: A meta-analytic study

Frontiers in Psychology

Eric Cheung¹  David L Neumann²  David Shum²  Raymond CK Chan³  Kui Wang³  Han Lu⁴ 

[1] Castle Peak Hospital;Griffith University;Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences;University of Strasbourg;

关键词: Depression;    age;    Gender difference;    BDI;    economic status;    Social gender;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01398

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Clinical observations and research suggest a female preponderance in major depressive disorder (MDD). However, it is unclear whether a similar gender difference is found for the reporting of depressive symptoms in non-clinical populations. The present meta-analysis was conducted to address this issue. We searched for published papers targeting non-clinical populations in which the 21-item Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was used. Eighty-four papers (91 studies) published between 1977 and 2014 were included in the final meta-analysis, which comprised 23,579 males and 29,470 females. Females in the general population reported higher level of depressive symptoms than males (d = -0.187, corresponding to 1.159 points in the 21-item BDI). This pattern was not found to influence by years of publication, socioeconomic status or version of the BDI used. Using age group as a moderator, studies with adolescents and young adults were found to show a smaller effect size than studies with older participants. Our results appear to confirm the female preponderance in the level of self-report depressive symptoms in the general population, and support the social gender role theory in explaining gender difference over biological susceptibility theory and evolutionary theory.

【 授权许可】

Unknown